1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to medical image data storage and transmission, and more particularly, to a system and method for splicing medical image datasets.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Medical imaging has had a great impact on the diagnosis of diseases and surgical planning. However, imaging devices such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) devices typically generate large amounts of data per patient. This occurs because multiple images of the same region of a patient's body are acquired by using different parameters designed to highlight or enhance different organs within the same area of the body.
For example, from a single CT session, a high-resolution CT acquisition of a patient's chest is often reconstructed with at least two different reconstruction kernels. Here, a first reconstruction may include a “hard” kernel that gives sharp edges and distinguishes between air and non-air structures such as vessels within the patient's lungs and a second reconstruction may include a “soft” kernel that shows less noise in soft tissues of the chest, but shows blurring artifacts in the lungs. The reconstructions are then stored, at least doubling the amount of storage space used by a conventional picture archiving communications system (PACS) data management station.
Although these reconstructions provide an examining physician with valuable information to aid them in their diagnosis of the patient, the space available to store the data associated with the reconstructions in a PACS data management station is limited. In addition, the time it takes to transmit such data increases. As a result, data compression schemes have been developed to reduce the amount of data generated by medical imaging devices.
Currently, such data compression schemes tend to produce high compression rates with a loss in image quality. However, examining physicians and their patients cannot afford deficiencies in diagnostically important regions. As such, a need exists for a technique of reducing the amount of data generated by medical imaging devices while preserving image quality.